Left Front announces candidate list

OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

TRIPURA
ELECTIONS

Agartala, Jan. 9: The Left Front this evening announced its list of 59 nominations for the upcoming Assembly polls after dropping seven legislators on grounds of delimitation and health problem. The list has 12 new names and includes five women.

Interacting with the media in the state CPM headquarters here at Melarmath, Left Front convener and CPM MP Khagen Das, accompanied by representatives of the RSP, Forward Bloc and the CPI, said 12 new names had been included after dropping seven MLAs on health ground and delimi-tation of constituencies.

“We are announcing 59 names for the 60-member Assembly because the state secretary of the CPI, which has been allotted the Banamalipur Assembly seat in Agartala town, is not here and in his absence we could not take a decision,” Das said.

“We had to take into consideration their state of health and changes in the shapes of constituencies following delimitation. The omissions are not reflection of their performance or evaluation of the party,” Das said.

The five women candidates in the Left Front list are MLAs Gouri Das from Teliamura, Rita Kar Mazumder from Sabroom, Tunu Malakar in Fatikroy, minister for social welfare Bijita Nath in the newly created Bagbasa Assembly constituency in Dharmanagar subdivision and former social welfare minister Vijay Laxmi Sinha in Kamalpur subdivision.

The nomination that caused a surprise was that of Shyamal Chakraborty in Sonamura constituency in Sipahijala district from where former MLA Subal Rudra was tipped to be selected this time again. All Left Front ministers, including chief minister Manik Sarkar, will re-contest the polls from their existing constituencies. Sarkar is the candidate again from Dhanpur consti-tuency in Sonamura subdivision from where he has been consistently winning since 1998. Speaker Ramendra Debnath and Deputy Speaker Bhanulal Saha have been re-nominated from Jubarajnagar and Bishalgarh.

According to seat allotment formula, the CPM, the dominant partner of the Front, will contest 55 of the 60 seats while the RSP and the CPI have been allotted two seats each, leaving only one seat to be fought by the Forward Bloc.

While the CPI will contest the Shantir Bazar seat in South Tripura and Banamalipur seat in Agartala town, the RSP will enter the fray in R.K. Pur seat in Udaipur town and the newly created Surayamoni Nagar seat in Sadar subdivision.